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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And hey, it's

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Speaker 1: Halloween in April. I'm so excited because we decided it's

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Speaker 1: got to be monster time here on Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: Your Mind, even though it's not October yet. You know,

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Speaker 1: we we can't put all the monsters in October. There's

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Speaker 1: too much monster. Yeah, what would we talk about the

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Speaker 1: rest of the year if we didn't occasionally check in

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Speaker 1: with the monstrous denizens of the dark. And we have

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Speaker 1: a great one here for a couple of episodes, because

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Speaker 1: there's there's just so much about it, so much about her.

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Speaker 1: We're going to be talking about the gorgon, the most

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Speaker 1: famous of the three Gorgons, Medusa. Now, Medusa is just

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Speaker 1: fascinating and enthralling figure, often above and beyond the source material.

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Speaker 1: But perhaps it's the perfect bolens of the sort of

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Speaker 1: counterintuitive aspects in her being, or or sort of the

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Speaker 1: shadow archetypes that seemed to resonate behind her. But she

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Speaker 1: is a long, burning monstrosity in the minds of humanity.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean this is I'm so excited about

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Speaker 1: this pair of episode. So just to give you a

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Speaker 1: little bit of a roadmap. I think in this first

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Speaker 1: episode here we're going to be mostly discussing the ancient

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Speaker 1: Greek myths of Medusa the origins of those myths, and

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Speaker 1: then later on in in part two, we're going to

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Speaker 1: explore more of the later interpretations of Medusa and how

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Speaker 1: she might apply to some interesting scientific and cultural topics.

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Speaker 1: But this, this is such rich territory. I don't know

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Speaker 1: if there is a richer monster out there than Medusa,

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Speaker 1: other than maybe the vampire archetype. Indeed, this is this

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Speaker 1: is fertile soil, and we we've talked about doing an

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Speaker 1: episode on Medusa for years. Uh it's one we've kind

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Speaker 1: of uh kicked around, but this time we're covering it

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Speaker 1: because uh my son urged me to do it. So

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Speaker 1: here we are. He's about to turn eight years old.

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Speaker 1: And since we couldn't actually go anywhere for spring break

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Speaker 1: due to the pandemic, we did kind of a makeshift

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Speaker 1: camp here at the house. We did a myth and

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Speaker 1: mushrooms camp, So my wife did a lot of mushroom

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Speaker 1: related crafts and activities with them, mushroom growing kid and

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Speaker 1: going out and you know, looking for mushrooms and then, uh,

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Speaker 1: we both partook of a lot of mythology with him,

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Speaker 1: given the boy's recent enthrallment with it due to the

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Speaker 1: Percy Jackson novels by Rick Ryerdon, I've heard of those,

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Speaker 1: but I don't know anything about them. So they have

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Speaker 1: something to do with with Greek myth. Oh, yeah, they're

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Speaker 1: They're full of Greek myth you know. It's it's sort

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Speaker 1: of a post Terry potter um world where you have

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Speaker 1: a you know, a boy, a young boy slash teen

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Speaker 1: by the name of Percy Jackson who is percy Us

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Speaker 1: and he's encountering all the gods and monsters you would expect.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, it's the book seemed to be a lot

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Speaker 1: of fun, uh for the kids, and more to the point,

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Speaker 1: it gets them into mythology. I was talking with Alison

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Speaker 1: utter Milk about it and she said there her son

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Speaker 1: had gone through a phase of being just super into

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Speaker 1: Greek mythology because of it. Um. So, uh, you know,

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Speaker 1: we were, you know, we really got into the mythology

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Speaker 1: and Medusa really stood out to him. So of course

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Speaker 1: we watched the original nineteen eighty one Clash of the Titans,

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Speaker 1: which features a very memorable Medusa sequence. We also watched

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Speaker 1: the nineteen nineties series Jim Hinson's The Storyteller Greek Myths,

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Speaker 1: which is is excellent and features an episode about the

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Speaker 1: Gorgon's I actually just watched this last night at your recommendation.

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Speaker 1: It's uh, it's streaming right now. And the yeah, the

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Speaker 1: episode about Perseus and the Gorgon medusas is just wonderful

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Speaker 1: and it has great narration by Michael Gambon. Is that Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he plays the storyteller in this one. Uh. Yeah. All

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Speaker 1: four episodes are as of this recording anyway on Amazon Prime.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, they're they're they're wonderful fun you get what

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Speaker 1: Orpheus is one of the episodes of the Minotaur and

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Speaker 1: uh an Icarus and Datalus, and of course you know

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Speaker 1: with with my son, we also were reading a lot

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Speaker 1: of Carol Rose, one of my favorite monster chroniclers and

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Speaker 1: folklori's and the boy himself absolutely demolished de Larre's Book

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Speaker 1: of Greek Myths, that nineteen sixty two illustrated book that

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Speaker 1: I know a lot of us grew up with. So

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Speaker 1: there's something I always wonder about with with ancient mythology,

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Speaker 1: including Greek myth and and that's that I I since

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Speaker 1: a couple of things are intention when you're you're exposing

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Speaker 1: children to them. Uh. One is that I feel like

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Speaker 1: kids are naturally drawn to mythology, like they just eat

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Speaker 1: it up, they love it. But at the same time,

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Speaker 1: a lot of ancient myths are just full of obscene

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Speaker 1: cruelty and stuff that like, uh, you know the stuff

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Speaker 1: that that I don't always remember from the tellings of

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Speaker 1: those myths that I got when I was a kid,

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Speaker 1: I must have gotten some kind of sanitized versions of them.

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Speaker 1: Often do you find that a lot of that is

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Speaker 1: going on? And oh, yeah, yeah, because on one hand,

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Speaker 1: some of the versions that he's he's reading, you know,

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Speaker 1: they they've sanitized it to a certain extent, you know,

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Speaker 1: certainly with Percy Jackson, Uh, certainly with this this really

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Speaker 1: cool comics series called The Olympians that I also recommend

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Speaker 1: um and then also the Book of Greek Myths does

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Speaker 1: that as well. But that he'll also come up and

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Speaker 1: he'll he'll tell me about some just awful detail from

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Speaker 1: a myth where somebody, you know, killed their parents or

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Speaker 1: their sign or something, and I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: Greek myths. Uh, A lot of horrible stuff happens in them,

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Speaker 1: and and a lot of these tales are are tragic.

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Speaker 1: And then of course one of the ironies of these

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Speaker 1: episodes is that uh, as we really dive into the

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Speaker 1: origin story in the varied origin stories of Medusa, like

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Speaker 1: some of them are just very brutal in in a

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Speaker 1: way where I probably can't let him listen to these episodes. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I understand that. I mean, I think we'll try

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Speaker 1: not to dwell on the most obscene and cruel aspects

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Speaker 1: of these myths, but they are ancient myths. A lot

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Speaker 1: of ancient myths have obscene in cruel elements, So do

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Speaker 1: be prepared that kind of thing is coming. Yeah. So

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Speaker 1: if you're listening with children at the center, Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: know that this is it's going to get into some

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Speaker 1: really dark territory, So you might want to scout it

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Speaker 1: out first, is all I'm saying. Now. Know we've mentioned

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Speaker 1: Jim Hinson Clash of the Titans. These are examples. Will

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Speaker 1: come back to it again and again because a lot

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Speaker 1: of times these are these are introductions to these worlds.

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Speaker 1: Percy Jackson, uh is often an introduction to Greek mythology

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Speaker 1: for for for younger folks these days, um Dungeon and

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Speaker 1: Dragons is another big one. Medusa has long resided within

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Speaker 1: the Monster Manual, where she's sort of she sort of

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Speaker 1: becomes a species unto herself. Oh, can you play as

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Speaker 1: a Medusa? I'm I'm sure somebody there's I'm sure there

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Speaker 1: have been some homebrew rules at some point, or even

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Speaker 1: some official rules for playing a gorgon. Yeah, but um,

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Speaker 1: but I'm not aware of them offhand. It would be

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Speaker 1: It's one of those things would be kind of hard

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Speaker 1: to h if you really had petrifying gaze, Like how

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Speaker 1: do you run play that in a tavern? I'm a

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Speaker 1: gorgon bard, So all these audiences hate me. So all

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Speaker 1: of these are very much downstream versions of the myth

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Speaker 1: of Medusa, and some of you might, you know, you

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Speaker 1: might have this sort of instinct to criticize any discussion

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Speaker 1: of the mythic creature to begin with, via such recent

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Speaker 1: pop culture expressions like Percy Jackson or Clash of the Titans,

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Speaker 1: which you know at times certainly plays fast and loose

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Speaker 1: with the myth. But one thing we have to keep

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Speaker 1: in mind is that pretty much all versions of Medusa

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Speaker 1: or any mythological tale are a downstream product, the result

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Speaker 1: of centuries upon centuries of oral tradition, various tellings and retellings,

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Speaker 1: various written accounts and references, cross references, continually and perpetually

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Speaker 1: reshaping the myth and the monster itself to tell better stories,

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Speaker 1: to impart specific cultural ideas, or to merge with other

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Speaker 1: tales or other belief systems. So yes, while watching Clash

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Speaker 1: of the Titans, which uh you know that was that

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Speaker 1: was big for me, introducing me to a lot of

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Speaker 1: mythological ideas because it was always on TD S or

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Speaker 1: T and T back in the day. But but watching

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Speaker 1: that it can be rustrating because we inevitably recoil from

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Speaker 1: uh you know at the tale being told one way

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Speaker 1: and not another, of liberties being taken, the influence of

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Speaker 1: modern ideas and narratives like Star Wars, uh you know,

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Speaker 1: obviously being in play in the creation of this movie.

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Speaker 1: But to a large extent, this was always the way

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Speaker 1: with myths. This there is often this illusion of solidarity

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Speaker 1: with the Greek, with Greek mythology, because all these various

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Speaker 1: tales come to be largely canonized within certain major works

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Speaker 1: uh such as those of say Hesiod and Ovid, who

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Speaker 1: will discuss and then much later in key modern mythology books.

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Speaker 1: So much in the same way that there is no

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Speaker 1: one unchanging you. There is no single unchanging Medusa. It

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Speaker 1: is a creature that spans the ages, altering its form

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Speaker 1: along the way, sometimes slightly, sometimes in major ways, while

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Speaker 1: retaining certain aspects that resonate with us on a on

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Speaker 1: a truly universal level. Yeah, I mean, uh, it's a

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Speaker 1: very good point to say, way that modern authors are

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Speaker 1: sometimes cleaning up myths for you to make them more

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Speaker 1: palatable to children, or to make them more acceptable to

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Speaker 1: the morals of the day, or even not not even

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Speaker 1: just the moral Sometimes myths I think are altered just

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Speaker 1: to sort of make them more acceptable to the narrative

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Speaker 1: logic that's dominant within a within an era um that

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Speaker 1: was going on back then too. Yeah. So it's just

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Speaker 1: I think, always something to keep in mind. Boy. It's

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Speaker 1: a hard thing to explain to to a young person though,

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Speaker 1: because like my son really wants he wants the cannon

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Speaker 1: version of the tail, and he's very into correcting, uh,

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Speaker 1: film adaptations and all, and I have to kind of

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Speaker 1: explain to him. It's like well, you know, there's not

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Speaker 1: really just one story. There's no you know, there's this this,

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Speaker 1: This is a great point. I feel like children are

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Speaker 1: naturally cannon pedants. Why is that? Why is it that

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Speaker 1: when you're I was when I was a little kid,

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Speaker 1: and now I abhor that kind of thinking, But that's

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Speaker 1: absolutely how I was when I encounter all kinds of

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Speaker 1: mythology as a child, with Star Wars, with you know,

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Speaker 1: with everything. Why why are kids obsessive about cannon and

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Speaker 1: turn always turned to cannon pedantry? I guess a part

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Speaker 1: of a big part of it is, you know, you

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Speaker 1: look to your parents and authority figures, you know, adjacent

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Speaker 1: to your parents, as as being the providers of truth,

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Speaker 1: of telling you how the world works. And it's it's

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Speaker 1: only later that you really begin to understand that it's

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Speaker 1: not so cut and dry that your parents didn't have

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Speaker 1: it all figured out, that you have to figure some

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Speaker 1: out the stuff out for yourself, and some things are

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Speaker 1: beyond figuring out or just sort of amorphous, like uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, the true nature of a mythological being. And

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Speaker 1: then certainly if they're if they're really into something like

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Speaker 1: say Harry Potter, like there is one version of Harry Potter.

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Speaker 1: You know, I mean, it is, it is, it is

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Speaker 1: whatever J. K. Rowling says it is, you know. So, um,

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Speaker 1: it's hard to compare it. You can't really compare that

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Speaker 1: to Greek myth. Well, so maybe the place that we

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Speaker 1: should start with here is to try to give a

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Speaker 1: basic retelling of the main myths of the Gorgon, the

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Speaker 1: main myths of Medusa and perseus um, with the understanding

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Speaker 1: that there are a lot of different versions of these myths,

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Speaker 1: and different things will come in that we can explain

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Speaker 1: as we go on, but it probably makes sense to

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Speaker 1: start with a coherent version of the story. Absolutely. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: What uh? What Author David A. Lemming in Medusa in

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Speaker 1: the Mirror of Time two thousand eighteen book referred to

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Speaker 1: as quote what can reasonably be called a canonical myth

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Speaker 1: of Medusa. Yeah, I think that's a decent way of

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Speaker 1: putting it. And that David Lemming book you mentioned Medusa

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Speaker 1: in the Mirror of Time, that that's going to be

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Speaker 1: one of our main sources over the course of these episodes.

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Speaker 1: That's that's a great, short, succinct book. Uh. That captures

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Speaker 1: a lot of what's interesting about the Medusa myth. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and so we'll be referring to him a lot throughout

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Speaker 1: these episodes. Yeah, David A. Lenning is a narratus professor

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Speaker 1: of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Connecticut,

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Speaker 1: and he's an author of various works on myth Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and his his this book is is well worth checking out.

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Speaker 1: Before we do that, however, we're going to take a

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Speaker 1: quick break, but we'll be right back. Than alright, we're back,

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Speaker 1: So it's time to tell the story of Medusa. Now.

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Speaker 1: Of course, as we said earlier, there are a lot

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Speaker 1: of versions of the Medusa story. This is a theme

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Speaker 1: that evolves over time, and we'll discuss the shifting cannon

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Speaker 1: as we go on, but at the beginning here, it

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Speaker 1: would probably be best to start with the most commonly

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Speaker 1: received version of the myths of Medusa and Perseus. And

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Speaker 1: I'll try to summarize the story as best I can, um,

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Speaker 1: relying a lot on on work by David Lemming that

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Speaker 1: we mentioned earlier, but also with a bit of poetic

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Speaker 1: color from Ovid's telling in the Metamorphoses the Garthen Dryden translation. Uh.

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Speaker 1: That we should note that though Ovid's telling is far

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Speaker 1: from the earliest, it's where some of the best known

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Speaker 1: aspects of the story come from today. Absolutely, and Uh.

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Speaker 1: One of the things I want to point out that

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Speaker 1: will become obvious is that, you know, we tend to

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Speaker 1: refer to this story is that of of Perseus and Medusa,

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Speaker 1: and it is you know that is that the key conflict, uh,

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Speaker 1: that we tend to focus on, And it's the conflict

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Speaker 1: that is brought out in these various cinematic adaptations. But

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Speaker 1: I think in some respects it's almost more fair to

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Speaker 1: consider it the story of Athena and Medusa featuring Perseus. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And we'll get into that as we go. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: it's weird how Perseus can, sometimes, even though he's ostensibly

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Speaker 1: the hero of the story, feel kind of like a

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Speaker 1: little like pawn or game piece that's being moved around

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Speaker 1: by various powers. Yeah. We're just a character of chaos

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Speaker 1: that is just occasionally nudged in different directions by more

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Speaker 1: powerful entities. Yeah. Okay, So, according to some of the

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Speaker 1: most ancient sources of the actual Medusa myth, as opposed

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Speaker 1: to just sort of like the imagery of Medusa, Um,

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Speaker 1: this will be especially the Greek poet Hesiad who would

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Speaker 1: have been writing in the seventh or eighth century b c. E.

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Speaker 1: Medusa was originally descended from a family of primordial gods

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Speaker 1: and monsters. The original being in this lineage of gods

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Speaker 1: and monsters was Guia, who is the personification of the

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Speaker 1: Earth itself. And at first Guya was without a mate,

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Speaker 1: so she conceived a son parthenogenetically meaning virgin birth, much

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Speaker 1: like an island stranded komodo dragon. And this son that

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Speaker 1: she gave birth to was known as Pontus, and he

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Speaker 1: became her counterpart. She was the personification of the Earth

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Speaker 1: and Pontus was the personification of the ocean. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: this is the sort of thing is not uncommon among

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Speaker 1: primordial mythic beings. Uh So, then together Guya and her

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Speaker 1: son Pontus conceived more children, including the two figures who

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Speaker 1: would become the parents of Medusa. And these figures were Focus,

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Speaker 1: the sea god who home are called the Old Man

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Speaker 1: of the Sea. He's sometimes depicted with claws. He was

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Speaker 1: generally kind of a fishman crab person type thing, so

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Speaker 1: it's kind of like the crabby character on a SpongeBob. Basically,

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Speaker 1: I'm actually not familiar with SpongeBob canon. I can't go

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Speaker 1: in there, but there's a fishman, crab person monster. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The character is Mr. Crabs who runs um runs a

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Speaker 1: restaurant and he's voiced by Clancy Brown. Oh wow, Clancy Brown.

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Speaker 1: He was on SpongeBob. Oh. Yeah, he's he's a major

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Speaker 1: part of it. Well, I'm glad to hear he's doing

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Speaker 1: voice work. Yeah. Yeah, he has a great voice. It's

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Speaker 1: a great to see that. Yeah. He lends it to

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Speaker 1: a number of different projects. Okay, so we got a

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Speaker 1: Focus the Old Man of the Sea, and then on

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Speaker 1: the other hand, we've got Ketto or Keto, which is

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Speaker 1: where we get our classic terminology for whales, the idea

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Speaker 1: of the ketas or the SETAs and and Keto was

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Speaker 1: a giant sea monster. And together Focus and Ketto produced

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Speaker 1: a whole mess of monsters from their un in. So,

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Speaker 1: first of all, you've got the Gray and this is

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Speaker 1: a set of triplets who were all born with gray hair.

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Speaker 1: They're described as hags who share one eye and one

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Speaker 1: tooth between the three of them, and their gray hair

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Speaker 1: was believed to embody the foam of heavy seas during

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Speaker 1: a storm. Yeah. They are often depicted in TV and

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Speaker 1: film adaptations of the The Deuce's Story. You see them

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Speaker 1: in Clash of the Titans, Hintson, Percy Jackson and others.

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Speaker 1: My son is really into them, and the other day

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Speaker 1: he quizzed me on what their names were, which I

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Speaker 1: had no idea, but then he spouted them off. They

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Speaker 1: are Dino, Inyo and the Fredo. When there are three anyway,

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Speaker 1: so in some tellings there are only two. Yeah, And

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Speaker 1: I think their names I don't recall exactly what they

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Speaker 1: translate to, but they have something to do with the

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Speaker 1: qualities of the sea. Their names translate to things like

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Speaker 1: depth and terror and stuff. Now, another offspring of this

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Speaker 1: union of of Forcus and and Keto or Quito is Thusa,

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Speaker 1: who became the mother of Polyphemus. Polyphemus, of course, is

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Speaker 1: the Cyclops in the Odyssey who Disseus stabs in the eye. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And then you've got a kidna, the she Viper. This

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Speaker 1: is a woman who was half snake. Yeah, and sometimes

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Speaker 1: she's credited as being the mother of monsters and other tellings,

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Speaker 1: mother of Medusa even and and I guess you know,

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Speaker 1: there's a little bit of a kidna in the recreation

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Speaker 1: of of of the gorgon Ian Clash of the Titans

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Speaker 1: Ray Harry Housen's fabulous sequence. Oh is she half snake

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Speaker 1: in that? Yeah, she's She's depicted as being um a

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Speaker 1: snake from the waist down, you know, having been kind

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Speaker 1: of a serpentine centaur uh and and then being more

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Speaker 1: traditionally a gorgon from the waist up but without the wings. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So another one of the offspring here is one that's

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Speaker 1: familiar to us, is going to be Scilla, the the

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Speaker 1: sea monster with many heads, who swallowed sailors who came

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Speaker 1: too close to her rocks. And she's classically the counter

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Speaker 1: part of Charybdis. Right, So you've got this pair of

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Speaker 1: hazards in the ocean that is difficult to thread a

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Speaker 1: pathway through. Charybdis, of course, is like a whirlpool. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And then, of course, finally you've got the Gorgons, and

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Speaker 1: the Gorgon's are a trio of sisters whose name comes

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Speaker 1: from the word gor ghos, which means frightening or terrifying.

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Speaker 1: Medusa is one of the three Gorgon sisters. The names

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Speaker 1: of the other two are Thino and Urially, and curiously,

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Speaker 1: we are told by multiple ancient sources that while the

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Speaker 1: other two Gorgon sisters are immortal, tragically, Medusa is not immortal.

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Speaker 1: Hess He had writ specifically that her fate was a

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Speaker 1: sad one, for she was mortal, though it's I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure if it's ever explained anywhere why specifically she and

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Speaker 1: only she was mortal. Yeah, nothing ever seems, at least

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Speaker 1: in anything I've read, seems to be really made of

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Speaker 1: that fact. Like it's not like, oh, well that means

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Speaker 1: that Perseus is forever hounded bodies and more old gore

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Speaker 1: guns or anything like that. It's just kind of here's

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Speaker 1: the facts. It seems like one of those things that

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Speaker 1: might have been when people were trying to stitch together

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Speaker 1: disparate versions of a of a myth cycle, uh, that

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Speaker 1: that had incompatible facts. You might just paper that over

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Speaker 1: by inserting a little like, by the way, she was

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Speaker 1: mortal for some reason. Yeah. Yeah, if someone was like,

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Speaker 1: well I thought they were immortal. No, No, she was mortal,

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Speaker 1: so she's dead. She was the only one though. Yeah. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: according to a fragmentary document called the Shield of Heracles,

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Speaker 1: the three Gorgon sisters would walk about with serpents hanging

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Speaker 1: from their girdles. So imagine a kind of Batman utility built,

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Speaker 1: but all the pouches are replaced with snakes, and the

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Speaker 1: belt snakes would lear and they would flick their tongues

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Speaker 1: that anyone who beheld them. Yeah, and I have to

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Speaker 1: say depictions of this are cooler and grizzly are looking

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Speaker 1: than it sounds. Because that sound cool enough for you. Well, yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: it doesn't sound cool when I read it initially, because

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Speaker 1: it's like, oh, and that she had they had snakes

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Speaker 1: for belts. That just sounds kind of, I don't know,

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Speaker 1: kind of lame. But then you see an image and

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Speaker 1: it's like these snakes you're hanging off and you know,

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Speaker 1: and maybe writhing a bit, and there's there's perhaps a

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Speaker 1: sense of them. We won't get into this until the

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Speaker 1: second episode, but uh, you know, you get into some

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Speaker 1: of these Freudian concepts of what Medusa is all about,

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Speaker 1: and you look at an image like that and you

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Speaker 1: can you can see it. But again, more on that

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Speaker 1: in the second episode. Yeah, it should not come as

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Speaker 1: a surprise that some people, especially Freud, read a lot

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Speaker 1: of genital significance into the depiction of the snake bearing

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Speaker 1: sisters here now. Writing of the three Gorgon sisters, Apollodorus

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Speaker 1: says that their heads were twined about with the scales

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Speaker 1: of dragons, and that they had golden wings or I've

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Speaker 1: also seen it said sometimes bronze wings, and also great tusks,

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Speaker 1: like a swine's tusks. Yeah, those wings are often forgotten

381
00:20:59,800 --> 00:21:03,600
Speaker 1: in art and uh, you know, other depictions, cinematic or otherwise.

382
00:21:03,800 --> 00:21:06,360
Speaker 1: I think in part because that's just one more thing

383
00:21:06,400 --> 00:21:08,919
Speaker 1: you have to try and bring to life, either with

384
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Speaker 1: effects or otherwise. Though Hinson does have the wings in

385
00:21:12,440 --> 00:21:16,480
Speaker 1: his version. I think also sometimes, as with the clash adaptation,

386
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Speaker 1: there's an attempt to focus more on those serpentine details,

387
00:21:20,080 --> 00:21:23,200
Speaker 1: you know, like people want hybrid city, but they don't

388
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Speaker 1: want to deal with a chimera. Um uh, you know,

389
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Speaker 1: generally speaking chimera. Of course, for the most part, you

390
00:21:29,400 --> 00:21:32,600
Speaker 1: don't see a lot of uh like cinematic adaptations of

391
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Speaker 1: the mythical chimera either, like we want half and half,

392
00:21:35,600 --> 00:21:38,479
Speaker 1: we don't want uh, you know, three different types of

393
00:21:38,640 --> 00:21:41,680
Speaker 1: animal physiologies merged together. Well, yeah, I mean, I want

394
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Speaker 1: at what point do you start pushing from minimally counterintuitive

395
00:21:44,760 --> 00:21:48,320
Speaker 1: into just like too complicated, too weird. Yeah, yeah, I

396
00:21:48,320 --> 00:21:51,000
Speaker 1: think that's a big part of it too. Yeah. So anyway,

397
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Speaker 1: you've got these three terrifying sisters, all with snakes and dangling,

398
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Speaker 1: They've got scaly dragon heads, they've got wild boar tusks,

399
00:21:59,240 --> 00:22:03,560
Speaker 1: and huge metal wings. And in this telling, Medusa is

400
00:22:03,680 --> 00:22:08,280
Speaker 1: quite clearly a primordial monster, right, She's ancient. She springs

401
00:22:08,320 --> 00:22:10,680
Speaker 1: from a line of beings with deep roots in the

402
00:22:10,720 --> 00:22:14,880
Speaker 1: earth and sea and natural forces. And it's in this

403
00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:17,639
Speaker 1: version of Medusa it's easy to see similarities here with

404
00:22:17,760 --> 00:22:23,440
Speaker 1: other primordial monster gods who embody or spring from embodiments,

405
00:22:23,520 --> 00:22:27,320
Speaker 1: especially of the sea, right like Tia Mott, the saltwater

406
00:22:27,440 --> 00:22:31,000
Speaker 1: dragon of ancient Babylonian myth, particularly in the Uma, a

407
00:22:31,080 --> 00:22:34,240
Speaker 1: leash who spits poison and death upon the world. It

408
00:22:34,320 --> 00:22:37,240
Speaker 1: creates creatures that are kind of xenomorph like in that

409
00:22:37,359 --> 00:22:40,040
Speaker 1: they have acid for blood. Yeah. And I think in

410
00:22:40,080 --> 00:22:43,920
Speaker 1: all this too, remembering the salt water origin of these creatures,

411
00:22:43,960 --> 00:22:46,840
Speaker 1: we have to remember the you know, the importance of

412
00:22:46,840 --> 00:22:50,960
Speaker 1: sailing and fishing in the Mesopotamian and in the you know,

413
00:22:51,000 --> 00:22:54,000
Speaker 1: the Greek world that we're discussing here, like the Terror

414
00:22:54,040 --> 00:22:57,359
Speaker 1: of the sea, the risks of the sea, the unknown

415
00:22:57,440 --> 00:23:00,960
Speaker 1: depths of the sea, you know, all of these impacting

416
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Speaker 1: the psyche and the creativity of of of early people. Well,

417
00:23:05,640 --> 00:23:09,040
Speaker 1: I think it's no coincidence that Poseidon is maybe the

418
00:23:09,080 --> 00:23:12,480
Speaker 1: most like cruel and capricious and bad tempered of all

419
00:23:12,520 --> 00:23:15,600
Speaker 1: the Olympian gods, right, because this the sea is a

420
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Speaker 1: place of great bounty and promise, but it's also full

421
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Speaker 1: of chaos and death, and and it can't be it

422
00:23:21,920 --> 00:23:26,040
Speaker 1: can't necessarily be predicted. The sea itself is bad tempered. Yeah, yeah,

423
00:23:26,119 --> 00:23:29,800
Speaker 1: it really cannot be trusted. Uh. And you see that

424
00:23:29,880 --> 00:23:33,400
Speaker 1: with with arguably with the gods in general, but especially

425
00:23:33,440 --> 00:23:36,359
Speaker 1: with Poseidon. But okay, that's the version of Medusa where

426
00:23:36,400 --> 00:23:42,000
Speaker 1: she she's from this primordial lineage of ancient creatures and monsters.

427
00:23:42,440 --> 00:23:45,720
Speaker 1: There are other tellings in which it seems like Medusa

428
00:23:45,920 --> 00:23:49,880
Speaker 1: was once maybe a human or at least something more

429
00:23:50,000 --> 00:23:53,879
Speaker 1: vaguely humanoid like. One of the main examples is the

430
00:23:54,040 --> 00:23:57,200
Speaker 1: version of the Medusa myth that we get presented in

431
00:23:57,280 --> 00:24:01,119
Speaker 1: Ovid's Metamorphoses, which is probably the most familiar version of

432
00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:03,679
Speaker 1: the myth to us today, probably the most canonical version,

433
00:24:04,200 --> 00:24:06,919
Speaker 1: and in this it says that Medusa was once a

434
00:24:07,040 --> 00:24:11,440
Speaker 1: beautiful young woman with many suitors. She was widely admired

435
00:24:11,520 --> 00:24:15,679
Speaker 1: for her beauty and her glamorous hair. Um Avid writes, quote,

436
00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:19,560
Speaker 1: Medusa once had charms to gain her love. A rival

437
00:24:19,640 --> 00:24:23,160
Speaker 1: crowd of envious lovers strove they who have seen her

438
00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:26,159
Speaker 1: own They ne'er did trace more moving features in a

439
00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:29,840
Speaker 1: sweeter face. Yet above all her length of hair they

440
00:24:29,880 --> 00:24:34,520
Speaker 1: own in golden ringlets, waved and graceful shown. So this

441
00:24:34,560 --> 00:24:38,000
Speaker 1: goes very much against like the the version of Medusa

442
00:24:38,040 --> 00:24:40,760
Speaker 1: we were just talking about who's like this, uh, you

443
00:24:40,760 --> 00:24:43,639
Speaker 1: know who, who's sort of monster to the core and

444
00:24:43,760 --> 00:24:47,840
Speaker 1: monster from the beginning. But in this version of the story,

445
00:24:47,960 --> 00:24:52,800
Speaker 1: tragically Medusa catches the attention of the cruel and violent

446
00:24:52,880 --> 00:24:55,840
Speaker 1: god Poseidon, the lord of the Sea, the commander of

447
00:24:55,920 --> 00:25:00,640
Speaker 1: natural disasters like earthquakes and storms. And in Avid's telling,

448
00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:03,920
Speaker 1: Poseidon comes down to the earth and he rapes Medusa

449
00:25:04,040 --> 00:25:06,600
Speaker 1: in the midst of the temple of Pallas Athena, the

450
00:25:06,680 --> 00:25:11,240
Speaker 1: virgin goddess of wisdom. And this attack represents a desecration

451
00:25:11,320 --> 00:25:15,480
Speaker 1: of Athena's temple, and so because her sacred home is defiled,

452
00:25:15,800 --> 00:25:19,320
Speaker 1: Athena becomes furious and you you, of course, do not

453
00:25:19,440 --> 00:25:22,280
Speaker 1: want to be on Athena's bad side. After the attack

454
00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:26,800
Speaker 1: is over, Athena takes out her revenge horribly, not on

455
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:31,480
Speaker 1: her uncle Poseidon, but on Medusa. Yeah, it's as if

456
00:25:31,760 --> 00:25:35,400
Speaker 1: Poseidon is is kind of untouchable in this. Yeah, he's

457
00:25:35,440 --> 00:25:38,080
Speaker 1: one of the Big three after all. And uh, you know,

458
00:25:38,119 --> 00:25:42,600
Speaker 1: I think Arachne would remind us that the gods as

459
00:25:42,600 --> 00:25:46,440
Speaker 1: a whole are cruel and violent. You might remember, listeners,

460
00:25:46,520 --> 00:25:49,920
Speaker 1: Arachne was turned into a spider for disrespecting the gods,

461
00:25:50,280 --> 00:25:56,400
Speaker 1: namely Athena, of whom she lost a weaving contest too. Um.

462
00:25:56,480 --> 00:26:00,840
Speaker 1: But yeah, this, this, this particular telling of god and

463
00:26:01,680 --> 00:26:06,280
Speaker 1: possibly mortal interactions really smacks of cruelty. I should note

464
00:26:06,280 --> 00:26:10,119
Speaker 1: a couple of things here. Now. Uh Ovid chiefly contributes

465
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:12,879
Speaker 1: or at least records, the sexual assault aspect of this

466
00:26:12,920 --> 00:26:17,479
Speaker 1: story in the classical tradition, while hessi od and Uhhollodorus

467
00:26:17,800 --> 00:26:20,960
Speaker 1: keep it at lay with you know, they lay together

468
00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:25,240
Speaker 1: and and uh uh and that offended Athena, while others

469
00:26:25,240 --> 00:26:27,280
Speaker 1: tellers of the tale have described the union as an

470
00:26:27,320 --> 00:26:31,399
Speaker 1: act of seduction, such as Folkloris Carol Rose. Now, I

471
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:34,480
Speaker 1: don't know how much of that is just sanitizing it again,

472
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:36,240
Speaker 1: a little bit like we've said, you know, you don't

473
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:40,680
Speaker 1: taking some of the more horrific details out of the story. Uh,

474
00:26:40,680 --> 00:26:44,960
Speaker 1: for specially younger readers. Um. But uh, I just I

475
00:26:45,040 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 1: thought that was important to note. Apollodorus, however, added the

476
00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:53,840
Speaker 1: wrinkle that Medusa had previously claimed that her beauty matched

477
00:26:53,840 --> 00:26:57,159
Speaker 1: that of Athena. So we get into territory where from

478
00:26:57,200 --> 00:26:59,439
Speaker 1: the point of view of the gods, this is just

479
00:26:59,560 --> 00:27:02,919
Speaker 1: mortal paying for their vanity one more time, so that

480
00:27:03,040 --> 00:27:06,840
Speaker 1: it's not just Athena is blaming the victim for the crime.

481
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:10,040
Speaker 1: But Athena also has it in for the victim because

482
00:27:10,280 --> 00:27:12,879
Speaker 1: she previously had the gall to say that she was

483
00:27:12,920 --> 00:27:16,480
Speaker 1: on Athena's level. Yeah, exactly, And and so Athena she

484
00:27:16,600 --> 00:27:20,240
Speaker 1: turns her fury against Medusa. Here of it again, writes

485
00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:23,800
Speaker 1: the bashful goddess. That's talking about Athena. The bashful goddess

486
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:28,360
Speaker 1: turned her eyes away, nor durs such bold impurity survey.

487
00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:31,840
Speaker 1: But on the ravished virgin, vengeance takes her shining hair

488
00:27:32,000 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 1: is changed to hissing snakes. These in her aegis palace

489
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:39,840
Speaker 1: joys to bear the hissing snakes, her foes more sure

490
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:43,400
Speaker 1: and snare than they did lovers once when shining hair.

491
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:47,880
Speaker 1: It's interesting that he describes Athena as bashful. Uh, it's

492
00:27:47,960 --> 00:27:51,080
Speaker 1: not first description that it comes to mind. Yeah. Well,

493
00:27:51,119 --> 00:27:53,760
Speaker 1: I mean there's this weird thing the way Athena is

494
00:27:53,800 --> 00:27:56,399
Speaker 1: depicted as I mean, it's often emphasized that she is

495
00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:59,240
Speaker 1: like there's something pure about her, that she is the

496
00:27:59,359 --> 00:28:04,000
Speaker 1: virgin hoists they say, um and so, so that's sometimes

497
00:28:04,040 --> 00:28:08,320
Speaker 1: described as this weird quality of like shyness or something. Uh.

498
00:28:08,520 --> 00:28:11,200
Speaker 1: But of course we know that Athena is quite bold

499
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:15,040
Speaker 1: and quite powerful and has great uh wisdom and strength

500
00:28:15,080 --> 00:28:18,240
Speaker 1: and rage and you do not want to be her enemy. Yeah.

501
00:28:18,320 --> 00:28:20,280
Speaker 1: I hope she didn't listen to the podcast. By the way,

502
00:28:21,400 --> 00:28:22,800
Speaker 1: I don't know if we're really portraying her in the

503
00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:25,679
Speaker 1: best light here now. Not a lot of the gods

504
00:28:25,720 --> 00:28:29,080
Speaker 1: come out of this looking great. Um. But so anyway,

505
00:28:29,119 --> 00:28:32,600
Speaker 1: this is how Medusa becomes a monster. Athena transforms her

506
00:28:32,680 --> 00:28:36,560
Speaker 1: into this hateful mockery of her former self. She's once

507
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:39,360
Speaker 1: known for her beauty, you know, her curly locks of hair.

508
00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:42,960
Speaker 1: Now she's a creature with slithering snakes for hair, a

509
00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:46,760
Speaker 1: creature so hideous that anyone who looks upon her would

510
00:28:46,800 --> 00:28:50,040
Speaker 1: instantly be turned to stone. Yeah, it's it's a it's

511
00:28:50,040 --> 00:28:52,800
Speaker 1: a weird and dark origin story. But you know, here

512
00:28:52,800 --> 00:28:55,840
Speaker 1: we are. But so beyond her tragic origin story, Medusa

513
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:58,440
Speaker 1: is probably best known as the monster, the sort of

514
00:28:58,560 --> 00:29:02,080
Speaker 1: dragon figure of the Perseus myth, and so I think

515
00:29:02,080 --> 00:29:04,719
Speaker 1: maybe now we should turn to the myth of Perseus's journey.

516
00:29:04,720 --> 00:29:06,600
Speaker 1: And one of my main sources here, of course, is

517
00:29:06,600 --> 00:29:09,240
Speaker 1: going to be that book by David Lemming, which provides

518
00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:12,440
Speaker 1: an excellent overview of and synthesis of the different sources

519
00:29:12,440 --> 00:29:15,680
Speaker 1: on the story. Like a great many heroic narratives, the

520
00:29:15,720 --> 00:29:20,000
Speaker 1: story of Perseus actually begins with a miraculous conception under

521
00:29:20,040 --> 00:29:23,640
Speaker 1: dire circumstances. So, once upon a time in the ancient

522
00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:26,840
Speaker 1: Greek city of Argos, which is on the eastern end

523
00:29:26,920 --> 00:29:29,320
Speaker 1: of the Peloponnese. It's often said to have been the

524
00:29:29,360 --> 00:29:32,040
Speaker 1: oldest Greek city or one of the oldest Greek cities.

525
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:36,200
Speaker 1: The city was ruled by a selfish and paranoid king

526
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:42,080
Speaker 1: named a Chrysius, and a Chrysis had a daughter named Danny,

527
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:45,120
Speaker 1: but a Chrysis. He longs to have a son to

528
00:29:45,240 --> 00:29:49,040
Speaker 1: carry on his line, and one day a Chrysius visits

529
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:51,520
Speaker 1: an oracle to ask whether he will ever be able

530
00:29:51,560 --> 00:29:54,880
Speaker 1: to father a son, and instead, the oracle warns him

531
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:57,680
Speaker 1: that he will not have a son, but his daughter

532
00:29:57,840 --> 00:30:01,560
Speaker 1: Danny will, and the boy she gives birth to will

533
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:05,880
Speaker 1: one day murder him. Now, how many Greek stories start

534
00:30:05,920 --> 00:30:10,480
Speaker 1: with an oracle and then they turn out good? Yeah,

535
00:30:10,600 --> 00:30:13,360
Speaker 1: it's like, why would you visit an oracle at all?

536
00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:16,240
Speaker 1: It just never works out, right, I mean, it's always

537
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:19,320
Speaker 1: some like ironic point about trying to avoid fate. Yeah, yeah,

538
00:30:19,360 --> 00:30:21,960
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's really a story we continue to

539
00:30:21,960 --> 00:30:24,160
Speaker 1: tell to this day. You know, just the idea that

540
00:30:24,200 --> 00:30:27,720
Speaker 1: if you, yeah, you don't really want to know what's coming,

541
00:30:27,760 --> 00:30:29,880
Speaker 1: because it's only going to make things worse. You're not

542
00:30:29,920 --> 00:30:32,640
Speaker 1: going to be able to really duck fate, or you're yeah,

543
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:36,400
Speaker 1: we're just gonna gonna double down on the horrors to come.

544
00:30:36,800 --> 00:30:38,880
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, it's I mean, it's it's it's one of

545
00:30:38,880 --> 00:30:42,160
Speaker 1: these stories resonate so strongly with us. Yeah. Uh, so,

546
00:30:42,200 --> 00:30:45,000
Speaker 1: of course a crisis. Being selfish and kind of paranoid,

547
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:47,720
Speaker 1: he fears for his own life. So he resolves to

548
00:30:47,920 --> 00:30:52,360
Speaker 1: prevent the prophecy from ever coming true, and he says, Okay,

549
00:30:52,560 --> 00:30:55,240
Speaker 1: Danny right now is childless at the time he gets

550
00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:57,560
Speaker 1: the warning, she doesn't have a son yet, and so

551
00:30:57,600 --> 00:31:00,400
Speaker 1: a crasiest figures he can escape his fate if he

552
00:31:00,520 --> 00:31:03,240
Speaker 1: just locks her in a prison cell forever. I've seen

553
00:31:03,280 --> 00:31:06,360
Speaker 1: the prison characterized in different ways. Sometimes it's a tower.

554
00:31:07,240 --> 00:31:10,080
Speaker 1: I've seen it elsewhere characterized as like some kind of

555
00:31:10,160 --> 00:31:14,920
Speaker 1: subterranean dungeon, or even a box of bronze, but anyway. So,

556
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:18,000
Speaker 1: of course, the crisis believes that by imprisoning his daughter

557
00:31:18,080 --> 00:31:22,320
Speaker 1: like this, she will stay childless forever. But Zeus, the

558
00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:24,680
Speaker 1: king of the gods who reigns in the sky, he

559
00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:27,640
Speaker 1: sees the young woman locked away in her prison cell,

560
00:31:28,200 --> 00:31:30,560
Speaker 1: and he comes down to her in the form of

561
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:35,040
Speaker 1: a shower of gold from the clouds, and Danny conceives

562
00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:37,840
Speaker 1: a child. This is her child is a boy, and

563
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:41,360
Speaker 1: she gives him the name Perseus Uh. This part is

564
00:31:41,560 --> 00:31:44,360
Speaker 1: yet another recurring theme in Greek mythology. Of course, God

565
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:47,480
Speaker 1: coming down and having sex with a mortal woman to

566
00:31:47,600 --> 00:31:51,200
Speaker 1: father a child to become a type of demigod or

567
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:54,280
Speaker 1: a son of god here. Yeah, that's this is also

568
00:31:54,440 --> 00:31:57,560
Speaker 1: one of the key plot points in those Percy Jackson

569
00:31:57,560 --> 00:32:01,400
Speaker 1: books is that all the the the young Directors are

570
00:32:01,600 --> 00:32:03,760
Speaker 1: the children of the gods that have been in the

571
00:32:03,800 --> 00:32:07,440
Speaker 1: modern world created sired the same way and kind of

572
00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:09,680
Speaker 1: you know, left, uh, you know, none of them have

573
00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:13,080
Speaker 1: any real connection with their divine parents and have a

574
00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:16,760
Speaker 1: lot of mixed up feelings concerning them. Well, yeah, I mean,

575
00:32:16,960 --> 00:32:19,840
Speaker 1: the gods do not tend to be very good parents here.

576
00:32:19,880 --> 00:32:24,200
Speaker 1: So like, so you Perseus, Now, this boy is half

577
00:32:24,280 --> 00:32:27,320
Speaker 1: human and he's half king of the gods. And so

578
00:32:27,560 --> 00:32:30,080
Speaker 1: Perseus begins to grow up in this prison cell with

579
00:32:30,160 --> 00:32:33,800
Speaker 1: his mother, and at some point a Chrisiest discovers this

580
00:32:33,880 --> 00:32:37,800
Speaker 1: boy imprisoned with Danny and Chris crisis, of course, is

581
00:32:37,840 --> 00:32:40,720
Speaker 1: still in fear for his life, and so he says, okay,

582
00:32:40,760 --> 00:32:43,160
Speaker 1: I've got to I've got to be more more extreme

583
00:32:43,240 --> 00:32:46,680
Speaker 1: even now. So he has Danny and the young Perseus

584
00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 1: locked inside a box and tossed into the ocean to die.

585
00:32:51,600 --> 00:32:54,760
Speaker 1: It's interesting Living describes this box as quote a a

586
00:32:54,880 --> 00:32:57,280
Speaker 1: sort of arc as in the Ark of the Covenant,

587
00:32:57,320 --> 00:33:00,320
Speaker 1: and indeed that's often how it is depicted in Looting

588
00:33:00,520 --> 00:33:03,280
Speaker 1: in the Clash of the Titan and also in that

589
00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:07,120
Speaker 1: Jim Hinson adaptation. Yeah, the strategy is often presented as

590
00:33:07,120 --> 00:33:10,000
Speaker 1: a kind of indirect murder method. It's like, hey, I

591
00:33:10,040 --> 00:33:14,160
Speaker 1: didn't kill them, I just left them to their fate. Uh.

592
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:17,520
Speaker 1: It seems like a kind of weird moral sensibility that

593
00:33:17,600 --> 00:33:20,600
Speaker 1: makes a real distinction there. But he a lot of

594
00:33:20,680 --> 00:33:24,400
Speaker 1: characters in in Greek culture seem to think along these lines.

595
00:33:24,920 --> 00:33:27,880
Speaker 1: It's as if to say, for legal purposes, the ocean

596
00:33:28,040 --> 00:33:34,400
Speaker 1: is the one that will murder you, right, um. Yeah,

597
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:38,320
Speaker 1: But of course Danny and Perseus didn't die. Instead, while

598
00:33:38,360 --> 00:33:41,239
Speaker 1: they're floating around in this box, they are rescued by

599
00:33:41,240 --> 00:33:46,240
Speaker 1: a fisherman named Dictus, who is the brother of Polydectes,

600
00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:50,360
Speaker 1: the king of the island of Seraphos. And there on

601
00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:53,560
Speaker 1: the island of Seraphos, Danny and Perseus come under the

602
00:33:53,560 --> 00:33:57,440
Speaker 1: protection of Polydectes court, under under the protection of his house,

603
00:33:58,160 --> 00:34:01,960
Speaker 1: now eventually the king poly Dectes. Here he turns out

604
00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:05,320
Speaker 1: to be a pretty wicked king too. He decides that

605
00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:09,080
Speaker 1: he wants to marry Danny, but she refuses him, and

606
00:34:09,160 --> 00:34:12,720
Speaker 1: Perseus supports his mother in her refusal of the King's hand.

607
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:15,920
Speaker 1: So Polydectes what he wants a way to get rid

608
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:19,200
Speaker 1: of young Perseus, to sort of get him out of

609
00:34:19,239 --> 00:34:23,680
Speaker 1: the picture, to improve his chances of of wedding Danny.

610
00:34:23,760 --> 00:34:28,400
Speaker 1: And a great opportunity actually presents itself. Let's send Perseus

611
00:34:28,440 --> 00:34:32,839
Speaker 1: out on a suicide mission. Polydectes sends Perseus out with

612
00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:36,359
Speaker 1: the task of killing the monster Medusa, who is of

613
00:34:36,400 --> 00:34:39,439
Speaker 1: course one of the dreaded Gorgon sisters, and to bring

614
00:34:39,560 --> 00:34:42,560
Speaker 1: back her severed head. Now this version that you just said,

615
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:45,239
Speaker 1: this makes the most sense, right, Like Percy's wants to

616
00:34:45,280 --> 00:34:49,480
Speaker 1: protect his mother, Polydectes wants to marry her, and he's like, sure,

617
00:34:49,520 --> 00:34:51,920
Speaker 1: I'll leave your your mother alone if you bring me

618
00:34:52,000 --> 00:34:56,160
Speaker 1: the head of the Medusa. Ha ha. But and the

619
00:34:56,200 --> 00:34:59,560
Speaker 1: typical version of the story is that Polydectes just demands

620
00:34:59,640 --> 00:35:02,160
Speaker 1: some fi and horses, like, oh, I need some just

621
00:35:02,320 --> 00:35:05,600
Speaker 1: ridiculously nice horses. Uh, let's see you get those. And

622
00:35:05,640 --> 00:35:08,920
Speaker 1: in Perseus just leaps up like a final bidder in

623
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:12,360
Speaker 1: a Hollywood auction scene, you know, where they just outrageously

624
00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:16,239
Speaker 1: outbid everybody by like a million dollars, and gives himself

625
00:35:16,360 --> 00:35:19,440
Speaker 1: the suicide mission. He's like, I'll tell you what, I'll

626
00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:21,560
Speaker 1: bring you the head of a gorgon, and um, and

627
00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:25,160
Speaker 1: Polydectes is like, okay, um, you know, I was thinking

628
00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:27,000
Speaker 1: about trying to send you on a suicide mission. But

629
00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:30,319
Speaker 1: if you just want to propose one, go for it. Uh.

630
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:33,560
Speaker 1: So he's he's of course delighted and accepts. Yeah. But

631
00:35:33,560 --> 00:35:36,239
Speaker 1: but he's like Perseus, who's just who comes up with

632
00:35:36,280 --> 00:35:38,600
Speaker 1: the idea in in most of these tellings where he's

633
00:35:38,600 --> 00:35:41,680
Speaker 1: just like, I'll kill the gorgon. How about that? Yeah? So,

634
00:35:41,800 --> 00:35:44,080
Speaker 1: actually I think the way it works as Polydectes he

635
00:35:44,120 --> 00:35:46,359
Speaker 1: tries to ruse where he says, actually, I'm not going

636
00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:48,640
Speaker 1: to marry your mom, don't worry about it, chill out.

637
00:35:48,640 --> 00:35:52,280
Speaker 1: I'm gonna marry some other woman. But if I marry

638
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:54,880
Speaker 1: this other lady, I'm gonna need some good Mayor's as

639
00:35:54,920 --> 00:35:58,359
Speaker 1: a wedding present. And of course Perseus what he doesn't

640
00:35:58,360 --> 00:36:00,400
Speaker 1: have any money to go out horse train eating and

641
00:36:00,440 --> 00:36:02,840
Speaker 1: get horses for a wedding present, so what does he

642
00:36:02,920 --> 00:36:07,359
Speaker 1: have to offer? Basically just has his courage, So he's like, hey, hey,

643
00:36:07,480 --> 00:36:10,799
Speaker 1: I know I'll go find a prime primordial snake lady.

644
00:36:10,840 --> 00:36:13,720
Speaker 1: I'll kill her I'll bring you her head. And again,

645
00:36:13,760 --> 00:36:16,680
Speaker 1: of course this works out great for Polydectes because Polydextes

646
00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:20,040
Speaker 1: knows that the gaze of Medusa turns men into stone.

647
00:36:20,400 --> 00:36:22,640
Speaker 1: So this is an easy way to be rid of Perseus.

648
00:36:22,640 --> 00:36:25,000
Speaker 1: Here's one less pesky kid getting in the way of

649
00:36:25,120 --> 00:36:30,439
Speaker 1: his his dating game. I mean, I criticized Perseus because hey,

650
00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:33,560
Speaker 1: it's really easy to hate perseus um based on all

651
00:36:33,560 --> 00:36:35,920
Speaker 1: the details of the story. But but I guess you

652
00:36:35,920 --> 00:36:38,000
Speaker 1: can see this as being really clever on his part

653
00:36:38,040 --> 00:36:41,680
Speaker 1: because he chooses something, he chooses a task that is

654
00:36:41,960 --> 00:36:47,360
Speaker 1: difficult enough or even seemingly impossible enough that Polydectes agrees

655
00:36:47,440 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 1: to it. But also he has he has enough confidence

656
00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:54,080
Speaker 1: that he can somehow pull it off, right, I mean,

657
00:36:54,120 --> 00:36:57,880
Speaker 1: I think again, one of the most common personality traits

658
00:36:57,920 --> 00:36:59,960
Speaker 1: we see in these heroes of old is just kind

659
00:37:00,040 --> 00:37:03,239
Speaker 1: of like endless confidence. You know, you should have no

660
00:37:03,320 --> 00:37:06,160
Speaker 1: reason to think that you can kill the gorgon Medusa,

661
00:37:06,280 --> 00:37:08,600
Speaker 1: but he's just, yeah, I can do it, Yeah, I'll

662
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:10,520
Speaker 1: figure it out. Stuff just kind of falls into my lap,

663
00:37:10,560 --> 00:37:13,960
Speaker 1: That's how it works. But but either way you kind

664
00:37:13,960 --> 00:37:17,640
Speaker 1: of look at it. Medusa is not even the adversary

665
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:20,479
Speaker 1: that is thrust upon him by a cruel king, which

666
00:37:20,520 --> 00:37:22,320
Speaker 1: is which is what we see, like saying the labors

667
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:25,600
Speaker 1: of Hercules. She is instead just out there on the

668
00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:29,880
Speaker 1: edge of the world, minding her own business, already punished harshly,

669
00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:33,800
Speaker 1: when percy Is simply decides that killing her would be

670
00:37:33,840 --> 00:37:36,880
Speaker 1: an ideal feat to accomplish his ends. Yeah, she's not

671
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:39,800
Speaker 1: doing anything. It's not it's not like Bayowolf, like she's

672
00:37:39,920 --> 00:37:42,839
Speaker 1: raiding the hall or something. She's just on the other

673
00:37:42,840 --> 00:37:45,680
Speaker 1: side of the world. Yeah, like Clash of the Titans. Like.

674
00:37:45,680 --> 00:37:48,000
Speaker 1: One of the things it does is it retrofits the

675
00:37:48,040 --> 00:37:50,759
Speaker 1: story where the head of the Medusa is the thing

676
00:37:50,880 --> 00:37:54,960
Speaker 1: we need to overcome some other adversary or to get

677
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:59,200
Speaker 1: through some some great horror that's coming um, which you know,

678
00:37:59,239 --> 00:38:01,480
Speaker 1: I think makes it a little more palpable to to

679
00:38:01,640 --> 00:38:04,799
Speaker 1: modern audiences. Uh. But again, looks like you said, we

680
00:38:04,840 --> 00:38:07,760
Speaker 1: have to we have to think about what the model

681
00:38:07,800 --> 00:38:10,080
Speaker 1: of the hero is that we're dealing with in these

682
00:38:10,280 --> 00:38:12,960
Speaker 1: ancient versions. Right, all right, we need to take a

683
00:38:13,000 --> 00:38:16,359
Speaker 1: quick break, but we'll be right back with more than

684
00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:21,560
Speaker 1: and we're back. So Perseus sets out on his quest

685
00:38:21,719 --> 00:38:25,080
Speaker 1: and along the way he's given aid by the god Hermes,

686
00:38:25,160 --> 00:38:27,239
Speaker 1: who is of course the messenger of the gods who

687
00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:31,080
Speaker 1: flies between worlds on his winged sandals, and of course

688
00:38:31,200 --> 00:38:34,439
Speaker 1: also by Athena popping back up in the story yet

689
00:38:34,440 --> 00:38:40,319
Speaker 1: again to to just never stop spitting calamity in Medusa's direction. Yeah,

690
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:43,759
Speaker 1: as if Medusa hadn't suffered enough for angering Athena, the

691
00:38:43,760 --> 00:38:46,400
Speaker 1: gray eyed goddess instantly jumps into help percy Us out

692
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:49,439
Speaker 1: in his quest to murder her. Right. Uh, And it's

693
00:38:49,440 --> 00:38:52,359
Speaker 1: worth considering that there are sort of double alliances here.

694
00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:55,080
Speaker 1: Like first, yes, it really does seem just kind of

695
00:38:55,120 --> 00:38:58,520
Speaker 1: like Athena hates Medusa and is always making things worse

696
00:38:58,560 --> 00:39:02,920
Speaker 1: for her. But second, also Perseus is Athena's demi god

697
00:39:03,000 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 1: half brother. Right, they both share Zeus as a father,

698
00:39:06,520 --> 00:39:11,400
Speaker 1: and both were conceived in these unconventional mythological ways. Athena

699
00:39:11,520 --> 00:39:14,759
Speaker 1: springs from the head of Zeus. Yeah, so I think

700
00:39:14,800 --> 00:39:17,520
Speaker 1: you could see Perseus as a kind of champion or

701
00:39:17,680 --> 00:39:23,160
Speaker 1: representative of the interests of the Olympian pantheon down here

702
00:39:23,160 --> 00:39:27,680
Speaker 1: on Earth, like the Zeus administration has as an agent

703
00:39:27,840 --> 00:39:30,520
Speaker 1: on Earth Perseus And you're kind of going to see

704
00:39:30,520 --> 00:39:33,600
Speaker 1: that in the way that he fights against and causes

705
00:39:33,640 --> 00:39:38,359
Speaker 1: trouble for these other primordial, non Olympian beings, like the

706
00:39:38,480 --> 00:39:42,280
Speaker 1: enemies of the Zeus administration, will just get endless grief

707
00:39:42,360 --> 00:39:45,239
Speaker 1: from Perseus. Like Perseus, I need you to go on

708
00:39:45,960 --> 00:39:49,080
Speaker 1: Network news this evening, just make all the rounds and

709
00:39:49,440 --> 00:39:52,160
Speaker 1: just verbally attack all of my enemies, all the all

710
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:56,480
Speaker 1: the Titans, all the monsters. He just let him have it, right,

711
00:39:56,560 --> 00:39:59,600
Speaker 1: anybody from the line of Guia, any Titans out there, Yeah,

712
00:39:59,760 --> 00:40:02,839
Speaker 1: just go at him. But anyway, Percy, So he goes

713
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:04,840
Speaker 1: on this journey with multiple stops, so we don't have

714
00:40:04,880 --> 00:40:07,319
Speaker 1: to get into all the stops on the journey. Right here,

715
00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:09,479
Speaker 1: there's some that are more Germane to what we're talking

716
00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:11,440
Speaker 1: about than others. I think. Yeah, But if we were

717
00:40:11,480 --> 00:40:14,040
Speaker 1: to make a montage on it, basically, Perseus needs to

718
00:40:14,120 --> 00:40:16,319
Speaker 1: I d the Gorgon's, he needs to gear up with

719
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:19,480
Speaker 1: magical weapons to fight them, find out where they are exactly,

720
00:40:19,520 --> 00:40:22,120
Speaker 1: and of course travel there. Right. That's that's a good summary.

721
00:40:22,400 --> 00:40:26,200
Speaker 1: So at one point Perseus does encounter the three Gray Sisters,

722
00:40:26,520 --> 00:40:29,440
Speaker 1: the gray haired hags who share the one eye and

723
00:40:29,480 --> 00:40:33,799
Speaker 1: the one tooth between them and Perseus strategy here is

724
00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:39,640
Speaker 1: quite clever. He steals their one eye just seems which

725
00:40:39,719 --> 00:40:42,240
Speaker 1: just I mean, he sounds just like such a bully.

726
00:40:42,360 --> 00:40:44,799
Speaker 1: There's like three hags who share one eye, and he

727
00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:47,440
Speaker 1: takes their one eye, and he uses the eye to

728
00:40:47,520 --> 00:40:51,839
Speaker 1: get leveraged basically to leverage information out of them, specifically

729
00:40:51,880 --> 00:40:55,000
Speaker 1: about how to acquire some pieces of magic equipment that

730
00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:58,000
Speaker 1: he needs. Yeah, he's he's direct and to the point.

731
00:40:58,440 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 1: And now I and I love how in some versions

732
00:41:00,640 --> 00:41:03,719
Speaker 1: of the Tail Perseus returns their eye and tooth, because

733
00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:07,040
Speaker 1: sometimes he takes the tooth as well afterwards, and other

734
00:41:07,080 --> 00:41:11,160
Speaker 1: times he just keeps them right. And some modern tellings

735
00:41:11,160 --> 00:41:14,120
Speaker 1: find a middle ground by having him return the eye

736
00:41:14,160 --> 00:41:16,759
Speaker 1: but just like throwing it into the room somewhere where

737
00:41:16,760 --> 00:41:18,880
Speaker 1: they have to like scramble for it. So he's not

738
00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:22,680
Speaker 1: being you know, a complete meaning about it, like he's

739
00:41:22,680 --> 00:41:24,840
Speaker 1: not just going to keep the eye forever, squash it

740
00:41:24,920 --> 00:41:27,960
Speaker 1: or whatever. But he doesn't just hand it back like okay,

741
00:41:28,400 --> 00:41:31,160
Speaker 1: business concluded. I don't know something about it just seems

742
00:41:31,200 --> 00:41:34,120
Speaker 1: like so classically bullish. It's like the bully stealing the

743
00:41:34,160 --> 00:41:39,240
Speaker 1: kid's glasses' is like, oh, four us need his glasses. Yeah, yeah. Anyway,

744
00:41:39,280 --> 00:41:41,320
Speaker 1: so we know he's got to get this magical equipment,

745
00:41:41,320 --> 00:41:42,960
Speaker 1: so we has to go to the Realm of the

746
00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:45,440
Speaker 1: Nymphs to get some of it, and he ends up

747
00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:49,640
Speaker 1: acquiring a number of powerful objects and tools to to

748
00:41:49,760 --> 00:41:53,080
Speaker 1: help him in his quest, including a pair of winged sandals,

749
00:41:53,760 --> 00:41:57,759
Speaker 1: a leather bag that's known as a kipsist, sometimes translated

750
00:41:57,800 --> 00:41:59,960
Speaker 1: as a wallet, but I think this is best under

751
00:42:00,040 --> 00:42:03,200
Speaker 1: so it does like a sack of some kind, a

752
00:42:03,320 --> 00:42:08,239
Speaker 1: helmet from hades that confers the power of invisibility, a

753
00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:13,400
Speaker 1: magic sickle made of unbreakable adamantine, and a shield that

754
00:42:13,560 --> 00:42:17,200
Speaker 1: is so well polished that it's face is as a mirror.

755
00:42:17,719 --> 00:42:19,920
Speaker 1: I mean, he really gears up for this quest. And

756
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:21,799
Speaker 1: the thing is like, if these are magical items, if

757
00:42:21,840 --> 00:42:24,440
Speaker 1: this was Dungeons and Dragons, I don't think he'd even

758
00:42:24,480 --> 00:42:26,480
Speaker 1: be able to attune to this many items. I think

759
00:42:26,480 --> 00:42:30,880
Speaker 1: there's like a three attunement limit. Uh. And he's just

760
00:42:30,960 --> 00:42:34,760
Speaker 1: like just just geared up to the gills with high

761
00:42:34,800 --> 00:42:37,839
Speaker 1: powered magical items. In video game terms, I was thinking

762
00:42:37,880 --> 00:42:43,480
Speaker 1: this might be described as over leveling. Yes, But anyway,

763
00:42:44,239 --> 00:42:46,839
Speaker 1: once he has all the weapons he needs, uh, and

764
00:42:46,880 --> 00:42:50,480
Speaker 1: once he discovers where he needs to go. Perseus uses

765
00:42:50,600 --> 00:42:54,000
Speaker 1: the winged Sandals to fly to the dwelling place of

766
00:42:54,040 --> 00:42:56,640
Speaker 1: the Gorgons, which is someplace out at the edge of

767
00:42:56,680 --> 00:42:59,879
Speaker 1: the world. Yeah. I love how Limbing describes this place

768
00:43:00,200 --> 00:43:03,120
Speaker 1: is quote a kind of underworld at the end of

769
00:43:03,160 --> 00:43:07,319
Speaker 1: the ocean. Yeah. In more rationalist accounts, it's described as

770
00:43:07,360 --> 00:43:10,080
Speaker 1: a place kind of far out to the west, like

771
00:43:10,120 --> 00:43:13,600
Speaker 1: a series of islands in the Atlantic Ocean. But wherever

772
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:17,759
Speaker 1: this otherworldly places. Once he gets there, Perseus knows, he

773
00:43:17,800 --> 00:43:21,880
Speaker 1: remembers in advance that he cannot look at Medusa or

774
00:43:21,960 --> 00:43:24,799
Speaker 1: he will be turned to stone. So he uses the

775
00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:29,080
Speaker 1: mirror faced shield to see her as he sneaks up

776
00:43:29,160 --> 00:43:32,760
Speaker 1: upon the sisters while they're sleeping, and they're sleeping among

777
00:43:32,760 --> 00:43:35,600
Speaker 1: a garden of stones that are apparently the remains of

778
00:43:35,680 --> 00:43:39,600
Speaker 1: men and animals who once looked Medusa in the eye. Yeah,

779
00:43:39,600 --> 00:43:42,960
Speaker 1: and this is a haunting, uh setting that that is

780
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:45,520
Speaker 1: really brought to wonderful life. And in some of these

781
00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:49,920
Speaker 1: adaptations again that the clash of the Titans sequence with

782
00:43:50,000 --> 00:43:53,880
Speaker 1: Perseus and Medusa is just uh so wonderfully brought to

783
00:43:53,960 --> 00:43:57,040
Speaker 1: life totally. Though. One of the things that again it's

784
00:43:57,080 --> 00:44:00,880
Speaker 1: like how it gets adapted to our modern sensibilities. Modern

785
00:44:00,920 --> 00:44:03,560
Speaker 1: adaptations tend to make it some kind of heroic fight

786
00:44:03,600 --> 00:44:06,680
Speaker 1: against this threatening enemy. I mean in the story, he

787
00:44:06,800 --> 00:44:10,560
Speaker 1: sneaks up on the sisters while they're sleeping. Yeah, you know,

788
00:44:10,600 --> 00:44:13,920
Speaker 1: they're they're taking a nap, and Perseus comes up to

789
00:44:13,960 --> 00:44:17,120
Speaker 1: Medusa and uses the magic sickle to chop off her

790
00:44:17,160 --> 00:44:19,799
Speaker 1: head and then put it in a leather sack. Yeah,

791
00:44:19,840 --> 00:44:22,560
Speaker 1: and then run before the other two Organs can really

792
00:44:22,560 --> 00:44:24,799
Speaker 1: do much about it. Which, yeah, it doesn't. It's not

793
00:44:24,960 --> 00:44:28,840
Speaker 1: very cinematic, it's not very um, it's not intense. You know.

794
00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:32,120
Speaker 1: The The Ray Harry House in sequence, for instance, makes

795
00:44:32,120 --> 00:44:35,040
Speaker 1: it where it's more like Perseus is hunted by the monster,

796
00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:39,520
Speaker 1: because that ultimately creates more tension, you know, for for

797
00:44:39,640 --> 00:44:42,080
Speaker 1: us as as viewers, and resonates more with with our

798
00:44:42,120 --> 00:44:46,040
Speaker 1: our modern expectations. Uh, but but not so much with

799
00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:49,759
Speaker 1: like the role of the Greek hero. Yeah. So strangely,

800
00:44:49,800 --> 00:44:52,520
Speaker 1: when Medusa has killed, it's noted that a couple of

801
00:44:52,600 --> 00:44:56,560
Speaker 1: mythical beings just sort of erupt out of her dead body.

802
00:44:56,760 --> 00:45:00,040
Speaker 1: One of them is the winged horse Pegasus, and the

803
00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:03,359
Speaker 1: there is a warrior known as Chris or yeah, who,

804
00:45:03,400 --> 00:45:05,640
Speaker 1: by the way, would himself go on to father the

805
00:45:05,680 --> 00:45:09,200
Speaker 1: three headed monster. Garon Lembing notes that there's some indication

806
00:45:09,239 --> 00:45:14,880
Speaker 1: that Meduces somehow unnaturally birthed these creatures via the parentage

807
00:45:14,880 --> 00:45:17,799
Speaker 1: of Poseidon. Fair enough, I mean, we're up to our

808
00:45:18,040 --> 00:45:20,640
Speaker 1: waist in a in a pretty weird story. That doesn't

809
00:45:20,680 --> 00:45:23,359
Speaker 1: really make it too much weirder, uh to imagine that.

810
00:45:23,840 --> 00:45:26,400
Speaker 1: For some reason, when I was reading about this, I

811
00:45:26,880 --> 00:45:29,480
Speaker 1: was reminded so much of the ending of The Fly too,

812
00:45:29,840 --> 00:45:33,520
Speaker 1: where like the monster is kind of defeated and you

813
00:45:33,600 --> 00:45:36,239
Speaker 1: end up with like two entities emerging from it. Though

814
00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:38,520
Speaker 1: in that like one is pure and one is monstrous,

815
00:45:38,560 --> 00:45:40,920
Speaker 1: and this one like both are beautiful. Like it's a

816
00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:46,359
Speaker 1: seemingly normal humanoid hero and a beautiful flying horse. So

817
00:45:47,000 --> 00:45:49,200
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, the original Fly I just

818
00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:53,359
Speaker 1: realized would fit in quite well with of its metamorphoses. Right,

819
00:45:53,400 --> 00:45:55,839
Speaker 1: It's a story about a change in the body brought

820
00:45:55,880 --> 00:45:59,799
Speaker 1: on by Hubris. Oh man, that's perfect anyway. So back

821
00:45:59,800 --> 00:46:02,759
Speaker 1: to arcis a Medusa. So Medusa is dead, head chopped off.

822
00:46:02,840 --> 00:46:05,200
Speaker 1: Percys has got it, and he crams the head into

823
00:46:05,239 --> 00:46:09,759
Speaker 1: the bag into the Kisses and now Medusa's Gorgon's sisters

824
00:46:10,000 --> 00:46:12,840
Speaker 1: thin Oh and your Reality. They are awakened, and of

825
00:46:12,880 --> 00:46:15,919
Speaker 1: course they become enraged because they see their sister dead,

826
00:46:16,200 --> 00:46:18,799
Speaker 1: and they give chase, trying to kill the boy, but

827
00:46:18,960 --> 00:46:22,160
Speaker 1: fortunately Perseus still has some gear. He uses the helm

828
00:46:22,239 --> 00:46:26,480
Speaker 1: of Invisibility and the winged Sandals to escape them. Now

829
00:46:26,560 --> 00:46:29,600
Speaker 1: Medusa is dead and the story is far from over.

830
00:46:30,320 --> 00:46:32,880
Speaker 1: On the journey home with the Gorgon's head in the sack,

831
00:46:33,239 --> 00:46:37,160
Speaker 1: Perseus stops to take part in several other adventures. A

832
00:46:37,200 --> 00:46:38,960
Speaker 1: major one that we're not going to get into in

833
00:46:39,040 --> 00:46:41,440
Speaker 1: depth is uh this part of the story where he

834
00:46:41,520 --> 00:46:45,440
Speaker 1: rescues a princess named Andromeda from a dragon and ends

835
00:46:45,520 --> 00:46:48,720
Speaker 1: up marrying her. But also as part of the story

836
00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:51,880
Speaker 1: where where the head of Medusa becomes very relevant, Perseus

837
00:46:51,920 --> 00:46:55,760
Speaker 1: comes across Atlas. Atlas is, of course a a Titan.

838
00:46:55,880 --> 00:46:57,840
Speaker 1: You know, he was one of the original race of

839
00:46:57,880 --> 00:47:00,680
Speaker 1: Titans that were defeated in a war by the gods

840
00:47:00,760 --> 00:47:03,520
Speaker 1: led by Zeus, and so now he's the sort of

841
00:47:03,560 --> 00:47:07,200
Speaker 1: like defeated prisoner of war type figure who is tortured

842
00:47:07,239 --> 00:47:10,760
Speaker 1: after losing this war by the gods by being forced

843
00:47:10,760 --> 00:47:14,759
Speaker 1: to hold up the sky for eternity, and when Perseus

844
00:47:14,840 --> 00:47:18,839
Speaker 1: arrives in Atlas's lands, Atlas is obviously not a fan

845
00:47:18,960 --> 00:47:21,319
Speaker 1: of course. First of all, Atlas is suffering after his

846
00:47:21,360 --> 00:47:24,360
Speaker 1: people lost this war to Zeus, and Perseus claims Zeus

847
00:47:24,480 --> 00:47:27,080
Speaker 1: is his father. Second, like, who is this kid with

848
00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:31,360
Speaker 1: a bloody leather bag? But uh so, because he feels

849
00:47:31,440 --> 00:47:35,279
Speaker 1: not welcomed by Atlas, Perseus pulls the severed head of

850
00:47:35,280 --> 00:47:38,000
Speaker 1: Medusa out of the bag and shows it to Atlas.

851
00:47:38,360 --> 00:47:41,040
Speaker 1: Atlas looks on the head and he turns to stone,

852
00:47:41,239 --> 00:47:45,440
Speaker 1: and in this form, Atlas becomes a mountain range that

853
00:47:45,520 --> 00:47:49,399
Speaker 1: holds up the sky. Then, when Perseus finally arrives back

854
00:47:49,440 --> 00:47:53,200
Speaker 1: home with his bride Andromeda, he uses Medusa's head to

855
00:47:53,320 --> 00:47:56,840
Speaker 1: turn the wicked king Polydectes and his servants into stone,

856
00:47:57,280 --> 00:48:00,480
Speaker 1: and he sets his mother free. It's so really Percy's

857
00:48:00,480 --> 00:48:03,160
Speaker 1: is just going on a freaking rampage with the Gorgon's head,

858
00:48:03,280 --> 00:48:07,760
Speaker 1: just petrifying anyone he likes, even a titan, before finally,

859
00:48:08,040 --> 00:48:10,799
Speaker 1: uh you know, eventually handing it back, in which we'll

860
00:48:10,800 --> 00:48:14,160
Speaker 1: get to, uh fun fact um. Atlas shows up in

861
00:48:14,160 --> 00:48:18,280
Speaker 1: that Hintson adaptation and played by none other than Pat Roach.

862
00:48:18,719 --> 00:48:21,560
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Pat pat Roach of course played the bald

863
00:48:21,719 --> 00:48:26,160
Speaker 1: Nazi that Indiana Jones fights uh in front of the

864
00:48:26,280 --> 00:48:29,040
Speaker 1: uh the the airplane and greater as the Lost Art

865
00:48:29,200 --> 00:48:32,440
Speaker 1: gets turned into propeller soup. Yeah, he plays uh. Oh,

866
00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:35,000
Speaker 1: he's in like Conan the Barberry and no, well, no,

867
00:48:35,120 --> 00:48:38,680
Speaker 1: he's in Conan the Destroyer. Uh. He's in that. Um.

868
00:48:38,760 --> 00:48:41,160
Speaker 1: He is also in Clash of the Titans where he

869
00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:44,560
Speaker 1: plays the Festus. And of course his background was British

870
00:48:44,560 --> 00:48:47,880
Speaker 1: professional wrestling, so he's quite an interesting fellow. Now in

871
00:48:47,960 --> 00:48:50,600
Speaker 1: the Hintston version of the story, they change it, so

872
00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:53,360
Speaker 1: they don't they don't make Percy is so vindictive, and

873
00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:57,840
Speaker 1: they don't make it like petrofaction murder right. It's portrayed

874
00:48:57,880 --> 00:49:01,000
Speaker 1: that Atlas is weary of this, you know, he's tired

875
00:49:01,040 --> 00:49:04,120
Speaker 1: from having to hold up the sky, and it's like, uh,

876
00:49:04,239 --> 00:49:07,440
Speaker 1: Perseus takes pity on him and turns him to stone

877
00:49:07,840 --> 00:49:10,400
Speaker 1: to uh you know, I guess to save him his burden.

878
00:49:10,640 --> 00:49:13,799
Speaker 1: Oh sweet, it was. It was a Mercy petrofaction. There

879
00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:16,640
Speaker 1: was another interesting fact that Limming mentions in his book,

880
00:49:16,719 --> 00:49:20,239
Speaker 1: and that's that the petrofaction of Polydectes and his followers

881
00:49:20,800 --> 00:49:24,320
Speaker 1: might be a type of ideological myth, the myth explaining,

882
00:49:24,360 --> 00:49:26,640
Speaker 1: you know, an origin or feature of something, and in

883
00:49:26,640 --> 00:49:28,960
Speaker 1: this case, it would be a known circle of standing

884
00:49:28,960 --> 00:49:32,279
Speaker 1: stones on the island of Seraphos that you know, it's like, oh,

885
00:49:32,400 --> 00:49:35,560
Speaker 1: here's you know, Polydectes and his followers who were turned

886
00:49:35,600 --> 00:49:38,320
Speaker 1: to stone once. But anyway, at the end of the story,

887
00:49:38,440 --> 00:49:41,759
Speaker 1: here's where we get into some really interesting territory. Perseus

888
00:49:41,920 --> 00:49:44,680
Speaker 1: doesn't just like, you know, keep the head as a trophy.

889
00:49:44,800 --> 00:49:49,160
Speaker 1: He gives the head of Medusa to Athena and it

890
00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:55,040
Speaker 1: becomes the emblem of Athena's breastplate or shield. Now, of course,

891
00:49:55,080 --> 00:49:58,400
Speaker 1: in addition to being the goddess of wisdom, Athena was

892
00:49:58,440 --> 00:50:01,880
Speaker 1: sometimes styled to say goddess of warfare, and this, of

893
00:50:01,920 --> 00:50:06,440
Speaker 1: course becomes part of the very interesting tradition of the aegis,

894
00:50:06,840 --> 00:50:10,879
Speaker 1: the idea that both Athena and Zeus had this object

895
00:50:11,320 --> 00:50:14,360
Speaker 1: that's mentioned in ancient Greek literature all over the place,

896
00:50:14,719 --> 00:50:17,520
Speaker 1: but exactly what it is is sort of unclear. Now,

897
00:50:17,560 --> 00:50:21,680
Speaker 1: it's called an aegis. It's sometimes translated as a shield

898
00:50:22,320 --> 00:50:25,719
Speaker 1: or a breastplate or piece of armor. Or some kind

899
00:50:25,760 --> 00:50:29,000
Speaker 1: of animal skin, like a goat skin. Whatever it is,

900
00:50:29,080 --> 00:50:33,160
Speaker 1: it's it's some kind of protection device or some kind

901
00:50:33,160 --> 00:50:37,240
Speaker 1: of covering that the gods can hide behind or can

902
00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:41,800
Speaker 1: shield themselves with. And it has this power that's described

903
00:50:41,920 --> 00:50:46,719
Speaker 1: both as protective and as frightening, which is very interesting.

904
00:50:46,800 --> 00:50:49,799
Speaker 1: Like normally you might think of a weapon as terrifying,

905
00:50:50,280 --> 00:50:54,320
Speaker 1: but this is a terrifying shield or a terrifying covering

906
00:50:54,480 --> 00:50:58,120
Speaker 1: or piece of armor. And in many depictions, the central

907
00:50:58,280 --> 00:51:02,000
Speaker 1: visual feature of the just of Athena and of Zeus

908
00:51:02,040 --> 00:51:04,880
Speaker 1: becomes the head of Medusa, or at least the image

909
00:51:04,880 --> 00:51:07,640
Speaker 1: of the head of Medusa. Yeah, and this is really

910
00:51:07,640 --> 00:51:10,279
Speaker 1: one of those points where the story, uh does seem

911
00:51:10,320 --> 00:51:13,200
Speaker 1: to just come back around to being all about Athena's

912
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:16,640
Speaker 1: rage against Medusa, as as she accepts the whole head

913
00:51:16,640 --> 00:51:19,520
Speaker 1: of the Gorgon and absorbs it into her shield or

914
00:51:19,520 --> 00:51:22,919
Speaker 1: makes her shield out of it. The less harsh interpretation

915
00:51:22,960 --> 00:51:24,840
Speaker 1: of this is that, you know, via the creation of

916
00:51:24,880 --> 00:51:28,120
Speaker 1: the Gorgon's, Athena unleashed a powerful weapon on the world,

917
00:51:28,160 --> 00:51:30,400
Speaker 1: and now she has taken it back and claimed it

918
00:51:30,440 --> 00:51:32,839
Speaker 1: as her own. But I also can't help but think

919
00:51:32,880 --> 00:51:36,520
Speaker 1: of Medusa's is still being alive in some fashion, you know,

920
00:51:36,560 --> 00:51:39,480
Speaker 1: in the same way that the snakes continue to writhe

921
00:51:39,600 --> 00:51:44,479
Speaker 1: in the cinematic and artistic um depictions of Medusa's head.

922
00:51:44,960 --> 00:51:49,080
Speaker 1: So you know, it's there's even this idea that perhaps

923
00:51:49,239 --> 00:51:52,640
Speaker 1: the head is still alive as its essence is infused

924
00:51:52,680 --> 00:51:55,560
Speaker 1: into athene As shield. And if so, it just seems

925
00:51:55,600 --> 00:51:58,719
Speaker 1: like another level of just you know, a horrible god

926
00:51:58,760 --> 00:52:01,800
Speaker 1: inflicted fate. You know, speaking of fate. As a coda

927
00:52:01,880 --> 00:52:05,640
Speaker 1: to the story, I should mention, of course, Perseus, Denny,

928
00:52:05,760 --> 00:52:11,080
Speaker 1: and Andromeda eventually do return to uh Danny and Perseus's

929
00:52:11,120 --> 00:52:14,440
Speaker 1: home city of Argos. And when Perseus shows back up,

930
00:52:14,760 --> 00:52:17,360
Speaker 1: a Crisius remember him from the beginning, the king didn't

931
00:52:17,360 --> 00:52:19,839
Speaker 1: want to be murdered by his grandson. Well he's just

932
00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:23,000
Speaker 1: like dude, I am done, and he just flees. He

933
00:52:23,080 --> 00:52:26,520
Speaker 1: goes to another city to hide, and later on in

934
00:52:26,560 --> 00:52:29,560
Speaker 1: the city where the king goes into hiding, Perseus just

935
00:52:29,640 --> 00:52:31,960
Speaker 1: happens to show up and he takes part in some

936
00:52:32,040 --> 00:52:35,520
Speaker 1: funeral games or funeral games are a feature of a

937
00:52:35,520 --> 00:52:37,680
Speaker 1: lot of stories back then. Remember the funeral games at

938
00:52:37,719 --> 00:52:41,240
Speaker 1: the death of Patroclus and the Iliad. Funeral games include

939
00:52:41,280 --> 00:52:44,359
Speaker 1: things like the throwing of the discus. So Perseus is like, yeah,

940
00:52:44,360 --> 00:52:47,480
Speaker 1: I'll play. So he decides to throw the discus and

941
00:52:47,560 --> 00:52:51,960
Speaker 1: he accidentally hurls the discus into his grandfather's head, killing

942
00:52:52,040 --> 00:52:57,640
Speaker 1: him and proving the oracles prophecy true. And it has

943
00:52:57,680 --> 00:53:00,200
Speaker 1: like nothing to do with the the the advenge you're

944
00:53:00,320 --> 00:53:03,160
Speaker 1: with the gorgon or anything. He just accidentally throws a

945
00:53:03,200 --> 00:53:07,919
Speaker 1: disk and hits him. Almost as if someone said, storyteller,

946
00:53:08,200 --> 00:53:10,799
Speaker 1: what about that that oracle and the prophecy that you

947
00:53:11,200 --> 00:53:17,560
Speaker 1: mentioned at the beginning. Oh, yeah, he he threw a

948
00:53:17,640 --> 00:53:19,560
Speaker 1: disc is at a funeral game and it hit hit

949
00:53:19,600 --> 00:53:21,000
Speaker 1: him in the head. Yeah, he died, after all, he died,

950
00:53:21,040 --> 00:53:23,960
Speaker 1: after all, we kid. But again, this guy's come back

951
00:53:23,960 --> 00:53:25,680
Speaker 1: to the you know, sort of the nature of myth

952
00:53:25,719 --> 00:53:29,400
Speaker 1: about like converging and uh and in the absorption of

953
00:53:29,440 --> 00:53:34,000
Speaker 1: different stories and the continuing uh you know, retinkering of

954
00:53:34,080 --> 00:53:36,719
Speaker 1: the tail and the myth as we as we as

955
00:53:36,719 --> 00:53:39,759
Speaker 1: we experience it. Uh. So, you know, sometimes I think

956
00:53:39,800 --> 00:53:42,640
Speaker 1: there are elements like that where things don't maybe completely

957
00:53:42,680 --> 00:53:45,799
Speaker 1: come together. There's some little plot holes that emerge that

958
00:53:46,200 --> 00:53:48,680
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes other storytellers come around and try to

959
00:53:48,719 --> 00:53:51,560
Speaker 1: fill them or smooth and out. I feel like it

960
00:53:51,560 --> 00:53:55,040
Speaker 1: would be more conventional and make more sense if, like Perseus,

961
00:53:55,080 --> 00:53:57,120
Speaker 1: I don't know he got out the Medusa will say

962
00:53:57,160 --> 00:53:59,160
Speaker 1: he still had the Medusa head. Maybe he gets it

963
00:53:59,160 --> 00:54:00,839
Speaker 1: out of the bag every now and then to clean

964
00:54:00,920 --> 00:54:02,920
Speaker 1: it or something, and you know, he gets it out

965
00:54:02,920 --> 00:54:04,840
Speaker 1: of the bag right at the moment that a crisis

966
00:54:04,880 --> 00:54:07,319
Speaker 1: accidentally walks into the room and sees it and then

967
00:54:07,400 --> 00:54:09,399
Speaker 1: turns to stone. You know that seems like that would

968
00:54:09,400 --> 00:54:14,200
Speaker 1: be more more connected in a holistic way. Yeah, but

969
00:54:14,280 --> 00:54:16,520
Speaker 1: you know, instead that would be nice and tragic, would

970
00:54:16,520 --> 00:54:18,560
Speaker 1: have an air of tragedy to it to a certain extent,

971
00:54:18,600 --> 00:54:20,880
Speaker 1: I mean, but then also not that much because the

972
00:54:20,960 --> 00:54:23,880
Speaker 1: grandfather did lock his mother up in a prison, and

973
00:54:23,920 --> 00:54:27,040
Speaker 1: that's what he's a bad guy. Yeah, so yeah, just's

974
00:54:27,080 --> 00:54:29,400
Speaker 1: not you know what, what can you say? Is the

975
00:54:29,480 --> 00:54:34,000
Speaker 1: disc ascending supposed to be funny? Maybe it is maybe,

976
00:54:34,360 --> 00:54:38,319
Speaker 1: or you know it It also kind of sounds like

977
00:54:39,360 --> 00:54:41,640
Speaker 1: to me, this is just me spitballing here. This is

978
00:54:41,680 --> 00:54:45,279
Speaker 1: nothing that Lemming argues, But it also has the smack of, say,

979
00:54:45,320 --> 00:54:49,080
Speaker 1: a story that originally didn't have any of that middle stuff,

980
00:54:49,239 --> 00:54:51,239
Speaker 1: Like let me tell you the story about a king

981
00:54:52,120 --> 00:54:55,720
Speaker 1: who heard that his grandson would kill him, so he, uh,

982
00:54:55,800 --> 00:54:57,880
Speaker 1: he didn't let his daughter out of a box. She

983
00:54:57,920 --> 00:54:59,560
Speaker 1: had a son anyway, so he threw him in another box,

984
00:54:59,600 --> 00:55:01,760
Speaker 1: threw him in the ocean may and they were lost

985
00:55:01,800 --> 00:55:03,960
Speaker 1: for years and years. Then they came back. He was

986
00:55:04,000 --> 00:55:05,879
Speaker 1: in a funeral game through a discus and he died.

987
00:55:06,280 --> 00:55:08,520
Speaker 1: I mean it's not I'm not saying that's a great story,

988
00:55:08,560 --> 00:55:10,880
Speaker 1: but at least it's it gets to the end a

989
00:55:10,920 --> 00:55:14,880
Speaker 1: little quicker, uh. But instead we have this whole additional

990
00:55:14,960 --> 00:55:17,560
Speaker 1: story that ends up sandwiched in the middle. You know,

991
00:55:17,640 --> 00:55:20,560
Speaker 1: it actually forms a very similar kind of bracket to

992
00:55:20,680 --> 00:55:23,440
Speaker 1: the bracketing in the narrative of Jason and the Argonauts,

993
00:55:23,520 --> 00:55:25,280
Speaker 1: right where like, you know, he goes on a journey

994
00:55:25,320 --> 00:55:27,239
Speaker 1: in the middle, but then comes back to the court

995
00:55:27,320 --> 00:55:30,680
Speaker 1: situation at the end and and there's sort of you know,

996
00:55:30,960 --> 00:55:35,120
Speaker 1: vengeance happens or fate is delivered. Yeah, but at any rate,

997
00:55:35,400 --> 00:55:38,879
Speaker 1: it does bring us to the end of this particular

998
00:55:39,280 --> 00:55:43,000
Speaker 1: mythological story, and it brings us to the end of

999
00:55:43,160 --> 00:55:48,239
Speaker 1: this episode, but not the end of our discussion of Medusa. Yeah,

1000
00:55:48,280 --> 00:55:50,239
Speaker 1: it looks like we need to call part one here,

1001
00:55:50,320 --> 00:55:52,080
Speaker 1: but next time we'll be able to come back and

1002
00:55:52,080 --> 00:55:55,160
Speaker 1: explore so many more fascinating angles on this myth Uh.

1003
00:55:55,440 --> 00:56:00,319
Speaker 1: We'll get to talk about possible origins and aperture pic magic, uh,

1004
00:56:00,480 --> 00:56:03,880
Speaker 1: sort of backwards development of myths that can sometimes happen.

1005
00:56:04,160 --> 00:56:07,719
Speaker 1: We'll talk about reception history, you know, all throughout cultures

1006
00:56:07,719 --> 00:56:10,319
Speaker 1: and in different time periods. We'll talk about art, we'll

1007
00:56:10,360 --> 00:56:15,279
Speaker 1: talk about science. I'm very excited, absolutely all right. So

1008
00:56:15,400 --> 00:56:17,080
Speaker 1: in the meantime, if you want to check out other

1009
00:56:17,120 --> 00:56:19,400
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, and we have

1010
00:56:19,440 --> 00:56:22,080
Speaker 1: done quite a few episodes about monsters and myths over

1011
00:56:22,120 --> 00:56:25,879
Speaker 1: the years, you can find us wherever you get your podcasts,

1012
00:56:26,080 --> 00:56:30,080
Speaker 1: wherever that happens to be. Help us out by rating, reviewing,

1013
00:56:30,200 --> 00:56:33,520
Speaker 1: and subscribing. Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio

1014
00:56:33,560 --> 00:56:36,319
Speaker 1: producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get

1015
00:56:36,360 --> 00:56:38,520
Speaker 1: in touch with us with feedback on this episode or

1016
00:56:38,520 --> 00:56:40,839
Speaker 1: any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or

1017
00:56:40,880 --> 00:56:43,879
Speaker 1: just to say hi, you can email us at contact

1018
00:56:43,960 --> 00:57:13,360
Speaker 1: at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Lets three

1019
00:57:13,440 --> 00:57:14,480
Speaker 1: ft four starts